Hello 2020!

I didn't stay up to ring in the new year last night, but while I was eating dinner I started thinking about what I thought 2020 would look like to my 25 year old self. And then I realized my 25 year old self wasn't good an dreaming up big ideas for the future. She was busy eating spaghetti O's and trying to pay rent.

25 years old would have been in 1993 for me. I started working for Microsoft in Sept of that year, leaving the family business, Boeing, behind.

Having a computer in my home wasn't a concept at all, let alone a laptop. While Bill Gates believed that one day a computer in every household was possible, I did not.

My 25 year old self probably assumed life would be a lot like it was then. I wasn't very imaginative in that way. I was an early adopter for most technology, but it never crossed my mind what the technology could be.

I sure I didn't have a mobile phone in 1993, we barely had the Internet. Dial up, Netscape or AOL...remember those days? I'm sure I wouldn't have imagined that a small handheld phone would not only act as a phone, but a camera, a place I'll tell the world what I'm doing daily, a calculator, a game player, a communicator by typing, etc. I am not sure I could live without my phone today. How did we do it?

Social media would never have occurred to me. My social media was the actual land line phone. I'd budget in long distance calls to friends. Sometimes, most of the time, I'd go way over my budget. Friends I had then we actually got together and did things. We communicated in person.

I was still recording shows on the VCR then. Wouldn't have imagined a DVR and all the channels you could watch. I had cable, but it wasn't nearly what it is now. Didn't have Food Network, Investigative Discovery, Lifetime, Oxygen, etc. I probably watched way less TV for sure.

I would not have imagined carrying a dozen or more books with me to read at any time. eBooks changed my reading life for sure. Back in the day, getting new books was "hard" for me in that I wasn't focused on going to an actual store to buy them. I didn't do the library then either. I had way more stuff going on to read. I certainly wouldn't have imagined my future self in 2020 would have ready 50+ books in 2019.

My 25 year old self had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. Her degree was Foreign Language and Literature, she wanted to be an interpreter. She couldn't pass that test. She wasn't ambitous in that she didn't want to be a CEO or anything like that. She wanted a job she enjoyed and make enough money to live comfortably. She wouldn't have imagined that in 2020 she may become a Vice President. She certainly didn't image she'd be a Director of Professional Services. She probably wouldn't have imagined ever being a Project manager and earning her PMP (Project Manager Professional certification).

I KNOW my 25 year old self would never have imagined chiming in 2020 without Mom and Dad. She would have assumed they would be here forever.

Life is very different these days. 2020 looms before me. I love the new year because it always feels like a clean slate. I have plans. I have goals. I have desires to do/complete certain things. I really want to focus on this year and finish some things I've started over the last several years.

So as you ring in the new year, think about all that has happened to you over the last decade or so. Would you have seen you life unfold the way it did? I think most of us would say no.